MicroHorror

Life sign readings remained negative as the two men made their way through the strange, ruined Martian settlement. Doorways yawned into dark, angular structures.

“It’s all so empty, sir. It gives me the creeps,” said the young scientist.

“Survival of the fittest, Edgar,” said Oderson. “That’s what you’re seeing here.”

His assistant shook his head. “I don’t know, Doctor. That seems like a callous way to look at it; the Martians, I mean …”

Oderson cut him off, “Survival, Edgar. Humans are the dominant species, and we’ve earned the right to prosper.”

“But we destroyed our own planet, sir.”

Oderson cocked an eyebrow. His assistant was bordering on impudence, but he decided to defeat the argument rather than simply pull rank.

“Edgar,” began Oderson, speaking as one would to a child, “Human intellect designed the O₂ factories that made colonization possible; ergo, we are the dominant species.”

The young assistant was gaping at him. He’d obviously been reading the propaganda sheets from the Eco-twits on Hoight1.

Enough was enough. “Had the Martians evolved, they would have been able to cope with the change in atmosphere. As it stands, they’re dead, and we are standing on the richest new colony planet in a hundred years.”

Edgar’s voice quavered, and behind his face screen, Oderson could see the beginnings of tears.

“Two billion life-forms obliterated, Doctor,” he moaned. “To imply that it was their fault somehow …”

“…is exactly how Pop-Control sees things, Edgar. Stop! We’re here.”

Oderson stood at the top of a shallow valley. Lying exposed before them on the scrub were thousands of glimmering gems of all colors and shapes. Despite numerous probes and tests on the surface, there was still no explanation for the phenomenon. Oderson and Johnson were the first humans to see it, and they would hopefully solve the mystery. Regardless, thought Oderson, there’s nobody left to argue about us claiming the lot.

He stooped and picked up a ruby the size of his fist. It felt lighter than expected, not like stone at all. Who cares? he thought. It was worth a fortune.

Without warning, the stone exploded into a mass of jointed legs.

It skittered once around his palm, then sank dagger-like fangs deep into his fingers. The pain was immediate and he went to his knees, swearing.

The field came alive with precious stones scuttling and rasping toward them. Sapphires became giant scarab-like beetles. Diamonds sprouted wings and wicked looking stingers, taking to the air to form a beautiful, deadly cloud. Here and there, clusters of jewels revealed themselves to be immense unnamable insect horrors. The sound of clicking legs and mandibles was deafening.

Cockroaches, thought Oderson, like cockroaches after the nuke.

Edgar fell to the ground, glittering, screaming, and dying.

Large, skinny-legged opal mantids began to claw their way up Oderson’s leg. He slapped at them, and his hand came away studded with tiny onyx ant-things that were already sinking their pincers into him. He cried out and tried, like Edgar, to get away. The swarm surged, as if sensing his desire to flee, and he was covered from the waist down in beautiful, multifaceted death. Trying one more time to get away, he lurched forward, and slipped on the scrabbling things at his feet. He went down, and was instantly engulfed.

As the bugs started to eat him, Oderson’s mind detached. His consciousness started to float above his body. There was no more pain, even as the creatures began to devour his insides.

Staring up at the Martian moon, pale yellow against the darkening sky, he thought again about the survival of the fittest. This time, he thought, we lost.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Oh I had a horrible dream where there was a huge dog chasing me and I couldn’t get away and it jumped on me and ripped my dick off then I turned around and I was holding a knife and I stabbed it and stabbed it in the stomach and its intestines poured out and swung around my neck and it was choking me and choking me and I cut its head off but then I was drowning in blood and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t breathe then I was running again only the whole world was made of bleeding meat and I couldn’t escape and then I knew it was a giant throat and it was swallowing me and I plunged my knife into it again and again and again and finally I saw light and I opened a hole in the meat like being born all over again I squeezed out and oh it was horrible just horrible.”

“It’s all right, dear, it was just a nightmare. It’s not real. There’s no monsters here. You’re fine. It’s all going to be okay.”

Martin cradled the severed head to his breast, kissing it gently on the forehead. “Thank you, dear, you always know just what to say,” and he went back to sleep.

Have you ever seen what pure Sodium can do? It’s fun, isn’t it? The teensiest little scrap will react so quickly when dropped into water, it’ll actually burst into flames. It’s so volatile that you can only buy it immersed in mineral oil. I heard that one time, a particularly precocious student was so impressed with the effect, that they stole the sample they’d been given, and put it in their pocket for mischief later. Once the oil was absorbed by their jeans, the Sodium started reacting in the air, burning a hole in the material, and when it got hold of the moisture in the flesh, it was astonishingly quick. The poor kid had to have a massive chunk of his hip excised, once they put him out, that is.

It goes without saying that, were someone to put it in their mouth, and swallow, or be forced to swallow, the results would be calamitous. In fact, it would probably ruin that someone for any other experiments, unless of course we just used this pinch-sized piece right here. Open wide. I said, “Open wide.”

Sort of brings new meaning to the term “palate cleanser,” hmm?

This, right here, is a ribbon of pure Magnesium. It’s pretty, isn’t it? If you expose this to flame, it flares up and burns extremely fast. Were this to be, say, wrapped around the arm of an investment banker and lit, it would leave a nasty third-degree burn in its wake.

We’d then have to do something about that, which would bring us to this charming little orange bottle of Iodine. This sample is homemade. It’s much stronger than what you get at the pharmacy. It stings a little, but there’s nothing like it for treating a chemical burn.

Silly me, we’re forgetting all about the gases. This one is also homemade, but the recipe goes back almost a hundred years now, World War One, I believe. They called it “Mustard Gas” back then, due to the yellow color. If someone were to open the valve on a glass case that was the current residence of, say, the same investment banker that took his client’s life savings and left town, well then, I’d say he’d get a little itchy under the collar for a while as water blisters started to form all over his flesh. Any “idiotic, pathetic, science teachers” would have to ensure they stepped outside, and made the chamber air-tight first.

Now, if that same investment banker we were talking about, who left town with his client’s money, also left town with his client’s wife? Well, then, we’d also have to talk about this canister over here. I love how simple the markings are on this one, “H.” This valve would flood the glass chamber. It’s great stuff. It does the same thing to your voice as Helium, did you know that? There’s just one slight difference, one that you might be aware of.

If a certain “weak, sorry, excuse for a husband” were to be careless with his cigarette after that, we might not have to worry about this mechanism here, that is based on simple physics. The trigger activates the hammer, which strikes the cordite primer, which launches a small amount of “Plumbum” from this part right here.

You see? So many of my students go away from high school, worrying that nothing they’ve learned will ever apply in the real world. I pity them. If they ever manage to capture the bastards responsible for ruining their lives, the results would be positively mundane.

I’m sorry, I can’t understand you, is there something wrong with your mouth? Ah–I see. You’re sorry. Well, that’s very nice of you. I appreciate the sentiment, but then I did swear revenge, and my word is as good as Gold.

The Kingdom came into being in an instant. From oblivion one moment, the entire society sprung up and started about its business, everyone instinctively knowing their place. It was the resumption of a grand drama.

In the market, Seamus Muldoon had secreted a good sized codfish under his long coat, and was working his way through the crowd. It was the perfect crime, for as close to the ocean as they were, everyone smelled a little of fish.

In the unused western wing of the keep, Sister Marguerite was breaking her vows of chastity with Ronald, the strapping, if a little doltish, baker’s assistant.

Monaghan, the kingdom’s head builder, was reveling in his wealth. He had crews of men all around the kingdom’s walls, which seemed to have always needed more and more shoring up. The salt air was forever (at least that’s what it seemed like) tearing away at the stonework that kept them all secure.

There were a thousand stories, and a thousand lives, all running in harmony when Armageddon began. The sky came crashing down about them. Stinging rain tore through the air, ripping apart buildings, killing passers-by where they stood.

Seamus was just arriving back at his modest hovel with his prize, when the entire building disintegrated before his eyes. As he opened his mouth to protest, the street heaved up in a wave of crushed stone and smothered him instantly.

Marguerite was finally aware that in the last few brief, sweaty moments of life, she had truly seen the meaning of life. She was basking in the glow of her newfound revelations when the tower exploded into a million microscopic atoms.

Monaghan met his end in the most fitting way possible, as his walls, that seemed made to devil him, finally succumbed in their battle with entropy and came down in tumbling waves. Their failure meant the end for anyone that was still living.

Colin, the rakish streetcorner philosopher, gadabout, and sometime minstrel had one last instant before the crush reached him, to think “this will all be back again, and so will we.” And then he was gone.

Miles and miles above the carnage and destruction, the toddler shrieked again with delight, dancing one last time on the sandcastle before running to play with Mommy in the waves.

Edna and Ralph were cozy in the back of his father’s baby-blue Ford Fairlane. Slowly, the car began to rock. Their rhythm seemed to harmonize with the very sounds of nature all around them. Night birds courted among the lush canopy of trees, singing away the last faint rays of light. The golden-rimmed clouds parted, revealing the perfect orb of the full rising moon. An unearthly howl filled the forest then, silencing all. The teenage lovers, lost in the perfect solipsism of young lust, heard nothing but their own haggard breath, moving faster and faster. It took the squeal of preternatural claws rending the metal flesh of the hardtop to jolt them from their…

***

“Carl, this isn’t about werewolves, is it? They’ve been done to death. And teenagers? Next they’ll be meeting up with Laurel and Hardy. This is 3-D we’re launching here. Three-god-damned-D. You’re proposing we waste the single most exciting revolution in moviemaking on the same old shit that we’ve been turning out year after year?”

“People like werewolves, Mr. Anderson.” Carl flushed purple, but had already moved the sheaf of papers to the bottom of a rather impressive stack.

“People liked Nixon at one point, Carl.”

“Point taken, Mr. Anderson. Perhaps we could try something a little different.”

“Yes, different. Now we’re talking.” The portly film exec leaned back in his padded chair. He lit another cigarette from the end of the one he was finishing, and took a drag. “Go ahead, Carl. Wow me.”

***

The new young master of the house arrived early in the day. The stately manor house had been a bequest of his recently departed Uncle Chesterton. Putting aside the bizarrely hostile behavior of the locals, including the rough young gent who’d shown him to the gate, he felt a kinship to the place. There was something in the air here that called to his blood.

It was only later that night, as he was making his way toward the lower chambers, that he got his first inkling of something amiss. All was silent, which was odd, as the house was draughty, and should’ve been a haven for mice and rats.

The chamber at the bottom of the spiraling staircase was shut tight. Alvin put his shoulder to it, and grudgingly, it gave. Upon spying the large oblong box in the corner…

***

“Vampires, huh? That’s different, Carl? You think any self-respecting teenager is going to strap blue and red glasses to his head to sit through… Listen, listen closely, Carl–that sound you’re hearing is Bela Lugosi spinning in his grave and the son-of-a-bitch isn’t even dead yet. And again with the “silent,” we’re making talkies here, Carl. Jesus.”

Flustered, Carl drew in a deep breath, and started muttering. It was so low, it sounded like buzzing.

“What was that, Carl?” The exec was fuming. The meeting was a bust.

The scrawny writer pushed up Coke-bottle glasses and cleared his throat. “I said I’ve got one more.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

***

The moon shone coldly with pale white light. The silence of the desert filled the air with ominous foreboding. In a far-off corner of a crypt, the dust began to stir…

***

“I swear to God, Carl, if it’s fucking mummies, I’ll garrote you with that stupid purple necktie you’re wearing. You’re supposed to be a writing genius, Carl. You’re a HACK!”

Carl was murmuring/buzzing again, but Anderson took no notice. “Why on earth do I pay you? You’re worthless–what’s more… you’re fired. Get out of my sight.”

At this, Carl’s face split in two, and released the monstrous fly-thing that had been using him as a shell. Pincers like scimitars clicked in front of its mouth. Shaking off blood from its wings, it launched itself into the air, and sped toward Anderson. His last thought before his head was snipped from his body was, “Now that’s what I wanted to see.”

“And the Lord banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and did set an Angel with a fiery sword at the gate. And the serpent looked at the Angel and said, “So, what do you want to do now?”
–Genesis 3:23(½)

Quaestor Godwin sat back in his padded chair and sighed. He really would have to be getting on with his day. The coffers of the church would not grow themselves, after all. The monk took a deep breath, and squeezed his eyes shut. He exhaled slowly, and smiled.

“That was exquisite, darling woman. Inform your husband that his slights against Mother Church have been forgotten, and in fact…” He gave a shudder of pleasure. “You have procured for him one less year of atonement. Does that please you?”

In response, the young cook’s wife just raised her streaming, red-rimmed eyes, and said nothing.

“Leave me. I have the work of the Lord to do.”

She needed no further coaxing, and ran from the room, as though Satan himself might be at her heels. Godwin allowed himself a small chuckle. It was a dreadful burden being the town’s sole link to the Almighty, but he thought that there were some benefits. He rose then, and straightened his cassock. Time to do his Good Works.

His first visit was to Duke Geoffrey, a man as infamous for his wickedness as he was for his fear of Hell. Godwin had collected an enormous sum from him over the years, and as long as the farms kept producing, he could count on a steady stream of income from the “Duke of Sodomy.” He’d often thought he might like to try that act himself with Anabella, she of the cheeky husband and chaffed kneecaps.

It was to his great surprise that the Duchess Felicia met him at the gate herself.

“Dear Lord in Heaven, you heard our prayers.”

Godwin tried to keep his air of aloof power, “We had planned to meet on this day, did we not, milady?”

“Indeed, Brother Godwin, but something has happened. It is horrible. Words cannot describe; you must come.”

Were it any other family, he would have refused, but to turn his back on the family that had built his fortune would be foolhardy to say the least. He made up his mind. “Lead on, Duchess.”

The Duchess opened the way, and Godwin entered the house. The door slammed shut, crushing her nose, and barring her from entering.

“Hello, Brother Godwin.”

A man’s voice, but not the Duke’s, seemed to be coming from everywhere, and nowhere. The house was freezing, though it was midday outside.

“Come to hear my sins?” There was a gleeful malice in the tone, and the monk looked behind him. Hanging in midair like a macabre puppet was the Duke, eyes rolled up to the whites, blood running from a dozen self-inflicted wounds.

“Welcome, holy man.” The thing mocked him.

“I… I cast you out, demon.” Godwin had to take control. Was he not the servant of the Almighty? “The Lord God of Hosts commands you!”

Braying laughter was the reply. Underneath, Godwin thought he could hear the screaming of the damned. “I think not, Quaestor. Remarkable as it seems, I am closer to God than the likes of you. God requires evil to give himself purpose. I serve that purpose, and who, pray, do you serve?”

The monk felt hot piss soak the front of his cassock.

From the top of the stairs then, a new voice. “Go AWAY!”

The Duke-thing growled in surprise. A red-haired girl, tiny in stature, looked down at them. “God HATES you. Go AWAY. Give me my DADDY back.”

The demon shrieked. The walls shook, and pottery shattered. “God wants you GONE.”

The Duke collapsed to the ground, trembling. In a minute, he was still, breathing heavily. Godwin turned to the girl. “My darling child…”

She snarled back, “He doesn’t like you much, either.”

“What’s this called again? It’s good.” Alex put down the small cup of liquor and looked out the window, distracted momentarily by the little lights collecting near the shore. It was mid-summer, and the work he’d been contracted to do was progressing nicely. He considered staying in Yokohama. There was nothing in particular worth going home for.

“Sake. They have it in Canada too, you know. You really were sheltered.” His liaison, a soft-spoken young man named Ken Tanaka, was giving him a wry smile, which was the extent of his sense of humor to the best of Alex’s experience so far. “You see those lights? It’s the Obon festival. Tonight people gather and send lanterns into the water to honor their dead. It’s said that during the nights of the festival, the dead can communicate with the living.”

Alex, the sheltered young programmer from Vancouver, was intrigued. Across the room, he saw two local girls sitting at a table. They were lit only by the small tealight floating in a vase full of water, full of pink flowers. From here, it looked like the one on the right was smiling at him. He poured another sake for Tanaka, and said, “You mean ghosts?”

Tanaka smiled again, “One of our most famous ghost stories takes place during the Obon festival. It’s called the story of Botan Doro. A man is visited one night by a beautiful young woman, Otsuyu, holding a peony lantern. They fall in love, and one thing leads to another. They see each other every night during the festival, but she is always gone before the dawn. His neighbor, an old woman, becomes suspicious of the comings and goings, and one morning, just before dawn, she creeps to the window, where she sees him in bed with a skeleton. That day, she puts a charm on the house, and Otsuyu is unable to enter. So great is their love though, that the young man sneaks out one night soon after, where she leads him back to her grave. In the light of day, he is found dead on the bare earth, entwined in a lover’s embrace with the bones.

“There’s a few different versions of it, but that’s my favorite.” Tanaka finished his drink, and poured another for Alex, finishing the small carafe. “Listen, I’ve got a six o’clock tomorrow. Do you want me to walk you back, or will you find your way? This place isn’t known for catering to gaijin. Not much English.” Alex looked across the room again; the woman was definitely smiling at him. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Oh–one thing, though–what’s the etiquette for sending over a drink to a pretty girl?”

“There is none; go for it. I’d stay with sake, though; mixing drinks is bad wherever you are.”

Alex motioned to the bartender.

Several minutes later, the woman appeared at his shoulder. In halting English, she said, “Thank you for the drink. My friend had to go. May I join you?”

She was stunning. Her ebony hair fell nearly to her waist, and her jet black eyes seemed to stare into his soul. Her figure was beyond description, and Alex felt suddenly and decisively out of his league.

He managed to nod, and she sat, but when he remained silent, she just smiled and motioned to the bartender, ordering something pretty-sounding.

They sat silently, and Alex was happy to have the lanterns to watch outside. Soon though, the amber wine loosened things up, and they were talking and laughing like they’d been together a lifetime. The lanterns started to flicker out, and the other patrons had left. Alex looked at the girl, and swallowed his last mouthful. Moment of truth.

***

Their lovemaking was sweetness without comparison.

***

As sunrise warmed his face through the bedroom window, Alex willed himself not to open his eyes. Instead, he took the bony fingers gently in his hand, and kissed them. Otsuyu was happy.

Erik collapsed onto his bed. “Welcome Week” rituals were fun, but between the partying until two in the morning, and waking up three hours later to go on “elephant walks,” he was starting to feel the worse for wear. Luckily, tonight had been “graduation.” It was an end to the rituals, and he looked forward to finally getting some sleep. The stories told by the seniors had hardly registered. After drinking from the ceremonial keg, and receiving his nickname, “Stains” (short for Shit-Stains), the elders had told the history of Baldwin Hall. It was built at the turn of the twentieth century, and had served as a halfway house for soldiers returning from the First World War. Legend had it, too, that several of the men had committed suicide here. For obvious reasons, it was never shared which rooms this was supposed to have happened in. Lesson over, the girls of Bronte House arrived, and the revelry commenced.

***

The room was almost pitch dark though the curtains were wide open to the moonless night. Something had woken Stains from his drunken stupor. There was a rhythmic creaking, coming from just over his head. It sounded vaguely like the tire swing his folks had up at the lake house. He rubbed his eyes. Back and forth, wearing at the rustic beams above the sound continued. He knew before he saw what it had to be. Stains wasn’t afraid of ghosts, though. What could something that by definition had no physical mass do to a solid human being?

The soldier was young, easily the same age as him, if not younger. It was hard to make out details, but could see the lump of a tongue protruding between the lips, and the slightly darker outline in his fatigues where the man had voided upon death. The apparition’s ashen face turned awkwardly on its broken neck and opened coal-black eyes to stare at him, and Stains (né Erik) saw.

***

His name was Daniel Ste-Rose. He had been conscripted just as he was readying to go away to school. Now he was in the trenches, with his new friends, Fox, Hammer, and Red–all that was left of a group that had gone through basic training together.

One night, they were over the top, charging in the dark and the mud towards the enemy trenches when the gas came. Choked screams filled the air. Daniel dove flat, and shoved his handkerchief into his pants as he’d been taught. Fear-piss came quickly and he clapped the stinking, soaked rag to his face and drew a shallow breath. He was angry as well as afraid now, and charged the position. To his left a grenade went off. It was far enough away that he was thrown off his feet, but one screaming chip of metal found its mark between his eyebrows. His face was swimming with blood, and each breath was an
agony.

He resolved to die a hero and charged with all the strength he had left. He came upon a group of man-shapes and opened fire. The trigger jammed, and he thrust the bayonet again and again. His ears were deafened from the blast of the grenade, or he would have heard the cries of, “DANNY! DANNY! NO!” When the smoke cleared, he saw the remains of Fox and Hammer at his feet.

The soldier never spoke again. He screamed once, then simply collapsed to his knees, and went to sleep. Later, when he arrived at the halfway house, he didn’t even spend one night. He simply removed his belt and hanged himself.

***

Stains sat in shocked silence, tears streaming down his face. He hadn’t just seen; he’d been there. But now, because he could see, he felt the other presences arriving–each with their story to tell. A hundred lives, and a hundred deaths to show him.

Erik loosened his belt, and apologized just once to the waiting dead.

He was the greatest player to play the game. Period. I don’t want any of what I’m about to tell you to color that. I’m only telling you because this time next week, I’ll be gone, and it’s important that someone knows. You can tell whoever you want; just don’t expect them to believe you. In fact, they’ll likely hate you for it. You’d be pissing on a legend. It’s the truth, though, and that’s enough for me.

He had a phenomenal arm. He earned his way into the bigs pitching. Son of a bitch had a curve that shook worse’n my hands do now. The hitting is another thing. He could drop a single into the slot with the best of them, but back then, he couldn’t clear that fence but once or twice a season. It’s a fact.

We were two years in the minors, then he was traded, and I didn’t run into him again until we were both wearing pinstripes. By then he was slugging them into the parking lot twice a night. I wish you could have seen it. Three years on, I asked him about it. We were roommates, and during a particularly awful stretch in the middle of August, we got drinking, and then we got talking.

“What in hell happened to you, anyway?” I asked. “Back on the farm, you’d get one out the back a handful of times at best.”

He looked at me a long time then. His eyes cleared right up, like we hadn’t touched a drop. This next thing, I’m not proud of, but it’s part of the story, so I’ve got to tell it. All I’ll say in my defense was that times were tough, and I was weak.

“Okay, Pete,” he started in that booming voice he had, even when he whispered. “I know for a fact you took dough to shave some points during this trip, so if I tell you this, it all stays you and me, correct?”

I had, and I said it did.

He took a deep breath, lifted his shirt up, and I had to stifle a shout. On his gut was a spider web of thin white scars. “This game needed something. You know that as well as I do. It was good, but it needed to be great. I knew I could be the one to do it. But I needed help.”

“What kind of help?” I knew then that I didn’t want the answer.

“I sold my soul, Pete. There was a shady character I used to know–Mr. Jesse. He got me this book, and with the book I talked to this thing.

“I was specific. I wanted to hit the long ball. The demon agreed; the little bastard drove a hard bargain too. He said he didn’t want no ‘deathbed welsher.’ Instead, each time I bang one out, he takes his cut. Feels like something’s raking my gut with a dull fork each time I connect. But it worked. Look at the game, Pete. It’s never been better. Baseball is what it should be.”

I could only stare. “It ain’t so. That stuff, magic… demons… it’s not real.”

“Real enough, Pete. Take a look. It’s not just the scratches either. It’s making me different. I’m meaner now than I used to be, colder.”

I thought of the grim look he always got at bat, face screwed up in determination, or pain. I was terrified for him. “So one day, you’ll hit one out, and that’ll be it?”

“I thought so. But remember back to the ’26 series, that thing with the kid? Well, after that game, I felt better. I realized then that being selfless, maybe, maybe there’s hope for me. I’m tired now, Pete. There ain’t no more to tell.”

I watched the rest of his career on tenterhooks. Every homer, I felt it. Every good thing he did, I wondered, “Is it enough?”

For his sake, I hoped so.

Emmett Poel was pissed off. He had traveled days in this stinking forest with its too-large trees and was getting sick of it. He looked across the fire at his “guide,” a third-generation voyageur named Remy Latour who knew this area very well, so he said. The problem was that Emmett only understood about one word in three, and the little man didn’t speak much to begin with, usually just “Follows me,” or “Careful with your walking, la.”

They had set out from the California border and worked their way steadily north. Time was getting tight. He had to make the deal with the coalmine soon, and get over to the coast where an American steamship would meet him.

Today they’d met the Indian. He was young and powerful, dressed in deerskin with two black feathers strung into his hair. “C’est Two Bear, mon ami.” They were getting close to the settlements. It was good news, but it also meant that Remy spoke to him even less, and instead conversed back and forth with the tough-looking young man in broken French, disastrous English and the guttural native patois. Tired and frustrated, Emmett cleaned his revolver by the firelight, and hoped that tomorrow he would finally meet people who spoke for-God’s-sake English.

As he snapped the cylinder home and filled the chambers with fresh ammunition, a huge croaking shriek startled him off the log he’d been sitting on. Both the guide and his “ami” were chuckling. Flushed with embarrassment, the American spun around to see a huge black bird sitting on a branch just above their heads. Without another thought, he pulled the trigger and watched with satisfaction as the ugly beast tumbled to earth like a rock, shedding feathers all the way.

Two Bear’s reaction was immediate. Moving faster than seemed humanly possible, he was around the fire and holding a massive bone-hilted knife to the man’s throat.

“NON!” Remy was screaming at the savage now. He held the man’s knife-hand firmly, and was talking rapidly. Emmett heard, “Beaucoup Americains… mauvais… des carabines–BANG BANG!”

The warrior stared at Emmett, hard black eyes full of primal rage, and he could tell it was taking a supreme effort of will not to rip out his neck. After what seemed an eternity, he sheathed the knife and walked over to the corpse of the bird. He picked it up reverently, and again with that uncanny speed vanished into the woods.

Emmett was shaking. “What in God’s name was that, Remy? It was only a bird!”

“Non, monsieur. It was… un corbeau, the Raven. They are sacré. Raven is God here.”

“Savages. Your job, Remy, is to keep me safe, no matter what. That was way too close.”

“Apologies, monsieur. But this, she going to be bad.”

“I don’t give a tin shit anymore, Remy. Let’s get some sleep. We got business in the morning.”

That night, Emmett dreamed of the bird. It was gigantic in his dreams and he was a mouse on the ground, squealing, trying everything he could to stay alive. The black bird dove at him, and it was as if the sky itself had become black feathers, closing in on him.

He started awake, but couldn’t move. There was a man sitting on his chest, powerfully muscled, with the head of a raven. The thing was staring at him with cold animal eyes.

“Look, mister, I didn’t mean no harm. I didn’t know nothing ’bout special birds or anything.”

Emmet screamed as the beak darted forward twice and took his eyes. He flailed for his pistol, but the bird-man swung one talon-fingered hand and removed the man’s throat to the spine.

With a squawk that sounded vaguely like “nevermore,” the Man-God’s body rippled once, and the raven flew away with the body. Across the fire, Remy made the sign of the cross, picked up his bedroll and started for the trading post.